Universal's Swamp of Dreams

By RICHARD CORLISS

Steven Spielberg wants to be Walt Disney. Jay Stein wants to get even with the Walt Disney Co. So the movie director, who in the past decade has created a boutique industry of family films in the grand old Disney tradition, and the president of MCA's recreation division, who believes his idea for a movie- studio theme park was filched by Disney Chairman Michael Eisner a decade ago, were just the fellows to devise Universal Studios Florida in Orlando, ten miles up the road from omnipotent Walt Disney World.

"If you build it, they will come." That rallying cry, from Universal's hit film Field of Dreams, embodies the sentiment that inspired Stein and MCA to develop 444 acres of snake-infested swamp into the largest U.S. moviemaking complex outside Hollywood and a handsome leisure world nearly twice the size of rival Disney-MGM Studios. With a partner, Britain's Rank Organization, and $640 million worth of muscle and imagination, MCA was ready to pose a serious challenge to Disney, on its own terms, for the hearts, minds and discretionary income of the 13 million tourists who visit Central Florida each year.

When Universal Studios Florida finally opened last week, the people did come, but the field of dreams was not ready for play. The park's most anticipated attractions, a pair of $40 million thrill rides based on King Kong and Jaws, were operating sporadically or not at all, thanks to last-minute tinkering with the daunting computer systems that run them. When the Earthquake ride was closed for repairs, those in the queue chorused an angry demand for "Re-fund! Re-fund!" (and got it). Others stood in line nearly two hours to experience Spielberg's rapturous E.T. Adventure, one of the two functioning rides.

The delays were one more obstacle in Stein's Sisyphean journey to realize his dream park. He had first proposed the idea two decades ago. In 1980 he pitched a partnership to Paramount, where Eisner was president before taking over Disney. (Eisner says he was not at the meeting.) Last year Cineplex Odeon backed out as co-sponsor. And still Stein pursued his vision, like the Jaws shark searching for fresh kill. In the weeks before the opening, he walked dozens of journalists through the unfinished attractions. So beguiling was Stein's spiel that some reporters obligingly described the experience as if they had been on the completed rides and the park was ready to roll.

So what do you want for $30.74? And what, eventually, will you get? An anti- Disney World, as far removed in spirit from the Magic Kingdom as gray (the dominant color) is from glitz. Both parks have strolling characters, but instead of Mickey and Minnie, Universal has Frankenstein, Marilyn Monroe, Beetlejuice. Both places will sell you plenty of food, but Universal's is spicier, tastier, more sophisticated. In movie-ratings terms, Disney's rides are G (for Gentle), Universal's PG (for Pretty Grisly).

Spielberg aptly calls the attractions "fun-scary." Jaws propels the great white at a boatful of innocent tourists, culminating in a nifty moment when the shark chomps on a pontoon and spins the craft in a deadly semicircle. Earthquake unleashes a flood in a San Francisco subway station during a tremor that registers 8.3 on the rictus scale. On the Kongfrontation ride, the big monkey goes ape in Manhattan, nastily juggling the passengers in a suspended tram; it looks great but needs to move faster. The Funtastic World of Hanna- Barbera sends cartoon fans on a witty, jolting whirl into the Jetsons' outer space, through the Flintstones' Bedrock, and straight down the crevasses of Jellystone Park. Only the lovely E.T. ride, which puts visitors on bikes to pedal the cuddly alien back home, is suitable for toddlers.

Universal never wants you (or Hollywood moviemakers) to forget that the park is a working film studio, where visitors may turn any street corner and see a real picture being shot. One show instructs the layman in moviemaking (postproduction, makeup, special effects) and movie history. In the Alfred Hitchcock pavilion, visitors can peer through binoculars at a clever model of the courtyard that James Stewart looked out on in Rear Window.

To pit Disney against Universal is to compare candy apples and plastic oranges. Both give value for money; both provide state-of-the-park tingles. At least Universal Studios Florida will also, once it gets revved up. Spielberg calls the enterprise a "work in progress," preferring to look ahead to his Cliffhanger and Back to the Future rides and the imminent invasion of the park by that cartoon bad boy Bart Simpson. "Years from now," he predicts, "nobody will remember that this wonderful place had teething pains." He might also have mentioned the notorious glitches -- gridlock, streets gooey with hot tar, customers close to mutiny -- that plagued the debut of a small California park in 1955. That one was called Disneyland.